THE CIVIL SERVICE 8l

the Cabinet. The fact that the law is not codified—i.e., arranged
in sections according to subject—increases this power. For
example, the main plan of post-war Unemployment Insurance
was set out in the 1920 Act. As parts of this proved unsatisfactory
in practice, or were made so by changing circumstances, a
string of amending Acts followed, till" the whole subject was
tangled, and very few people could give a clear account of it.
The real experts were the unemployed thepselves, and the staff
of the Ministry of Labour. When, therefore, the 1934 and 1935
Acts were being prepared to clear up the position, it was very
largely Civil Servants who had tocframe them. The same process
can be traced in every department of law-making.

But, once again, where is the objection? Here is a defect in
the Constitution—that there is no one charged with the task
of reviewing the law and trying to keep it both easy to under-
stand and in line with public opinion. The Civil Servants
obligingly, remedy this defect. But there are two questions to be
asked about any law: first, is it workable from the point of view
of those who administer it? second, is it just for those whose
lives are ruled by it? Now the Civil Servant is concerned with the
first questiop; he assumes, quite properly, that it is the politician's
business to know public opinion. If the politician neglects
this duty laws will be made which suit those who work them
rather than those who obey them; this 'is absurd, because the
only reason for obeying laws is to get some good from them.
The appearance of something very like droit admimstratif in the
British Constitution has already been noticed. Not content,
apparently, with influencing the actions of Ministers and the
making of laws, the Civil Service takes over work which should
properly belong to the law courts. This illustrates again the
bureaucratic habit of giving more weight to convenience than
to justice. The Lord Chief Justice, in his book, The New
Despotism, makes a vigorous attack on this development of
Civil Service powers. But, to the charge of despotism, the Civil
Servant can reply that the processes of law are long, costly and